Kansas Graduate Students to Lose Health Care Subsidies

KSAL StaffSeptember 30, 2016

The Kansas Board of Regents says graduate student employees at state universities will lose their health care subsidies starting next year as a result of a recent opinion by the IRS regarding health insurance.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the IRS issued an opinion that an employing university can no longer provide a subsidy for graduate students’ health insurance under the Affordable Care Act because the system’s student plan is an individual plan.

Regents communications director Breeze Richardson says Kansas’ state universities plan to offer extra compensation to students in place of the subsidies. The amount may vary by campus.

Richardson says there may be efforts at the federal level to get the IRS to change its opinion, but it would likely be too late for the upcoming academic year.